The Shadows Grow Longer
by lanuitestcalme
Summary: Barricade Day piece. As the Amis fall, someone watches. Title and piece inspired by another influence. See summary.


**Author's Note: My first barricade days piece. This is, in a sense, a crossover with "Elisabeth", a very good German-language musical. You do not have to have much knowledge of the musical to understand this piece, but here are some things that will help.**

**Death (der Tod in the musical) is a blond-haired, blue-eyed young man. If you have seen the musical, I am imagining Mate Kamaras as Death. He "kills" people with a kiss, the kiss of death if you want to look at it that way. **

**Also, I know that an earlier author did a similar crossover, with Javert. This is not related in any way to that lovely story. Certain parts of canon, such as order/fashion in which our boys died is relatively ignored or circumvented. Oh, and if you can guess the poem used as inspiration for Courfeyrac, then you get a cookie and much love from me.**

**Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Les Miserables or Elisabeth, nor do I own any recognizable characters from either of the two.**

Death watched as the bullets flew and the people fell. Soldiers and revolutionaries alike were hit and murdered by those that they once considered fellow countrymen. Death had seen his fair share of civil wars and revolts, but he figured that no country's people could be quite as violent as the French. The French seemed to constantly rebel against each other, for reasons sometimes small and sometimes quite large. He had watched many countries fall and get back on their feet within a hundred years, which was a short passage of time to him. But France, on the other hand…Her revolutions always seemed to span for forever, and she never fully recuperated. Be it a revolution over hesitant princes, bread, or the unfair class system, France was always hit the hardest.

There seemed to be a group of leaders of this particular revolution, each of them held together by some disillusioned sense of being able to change something. But Death knew, and he supposed that some of them did as well, that they would only be able to start the ball rolling. The revolution that they desired would not arrive until 1848, long after they were dead and forgotten.

But now, it was only 1832, and the people were dying. Time to get to work.

He attended to the soldiers first. They seemed like they would be the easiest to part from their mortal world, since most of them were simply following orders and not much else. They had no real spirits, no real lives. Death pitied them, but he supposed that they might have a better time in his kingdom, where only his world was law and no one was a slave to anyone else. The students were not the only ones who felt the call of freedom, and so, Death sent each of the poor souls on their way as they died.

Next he went to the body of a captured student, held as prisoner by the soldiers. Death could tell by looking at him that he had a sweet soul. He was little more than a boy in figure, yet here he was, dying of too many gunshot wounds to count. Death kissed him, and then, he watched as the student's soul made its way away from the barricades.

Then, he made his way over to the other side of the street, behind the ramshackle barricade. He saw the students, most of them no older than his own physical age, fall one by one to the metal bullets of the soldiers.

Death moved to each of them, taking their souls and leaving their bullet-ridden bodies behind.

First was a fiery-looking individual, and somehow, Death doubted that he had been to school in a while. His ginger hair stood out like a beacon amongst the chaos and confusion of the barricade. He was lying on his side, his fingers pressed tightly against a wound beneath his unbuttoned waistcoat. Still, though, a musket lay beside him, cradled in the crook of one of his arms. Death kneeled down beside him, brushing sweaty hair from his forehead. Without a word, the man looked up at him, and then, Death took him for his own.

Next, he found a bald man, held in the arms of a significantly more haired fellow. The bald man, who Death could hear the other, a brunette, call "Bossuet", was groaning out soft words to his friend. Quickly, Death took both of them, and he watched as their souls went on their way, hand in hand and peaceful with their demises.

The next to die was a short, slender young man who looked as though he never had had enough to eat. A brown cap covered his ginger hair, but beneath it, green eyes shone out to the world, demanding that he be noticed for who he was: a free man. Death admired his spirit, but such foolishness usually got one killed. And so, the young man died, but he died proud and that was what mattered.

Then Death came upon a rather interesting sort. This man was grinning, almost maniacally, though he had two bullet wounds in his right side. His head is uncovered, and somehow, this makes him look almost naked; it is as if his blond hair was made to wear a hat upon it. Suddenly, the man slid down to sit against the wall of a building behind the barricade, but the smile never left his face. His hand on his chest, he shivered as if he was quite cold. Making his decision, Death walked over to him and sat beside him for a moment. This one was still alive enough for conversation, and though he had always told himself not to, it might be good to get to know him.

"Rather poetic, is it not?" the student asked with a tilt of his head.

"I suppose," Death replied. "If you consider dying poetic, then yes."

"Like this, it is," the student said. "Dying for a noble cause, a cause that will bring much light to the lives of enslaved people everywhere."

"Perhaps, though you do realize…"

"Yes, I know," the student said mournfully. "We won't win; it's already decided. It was decided the moment my hat was shot off my head. One doesn't live long after such a close encounter with you."

Death was surprised that the man knew who he was so quickly, but perhaps he ought to have had more faith in human guesswork.

"Can I ask you something?" the student asked quickly, his breath growing faint.

"Yes, but I can't promise anything."

"Will…do you protect people, too?" the student asked. "If…can you watch over Marius Pontmercy? I don't think he'll survive long without me." The student pointed across at a tall, brown-haired young man with flushed cheeks and a worried expression on his face. Death nodded, for how else was this soul to find peace?

He leaned over and gave the student a kiss.

Then he saw another fall. He was short, perhaps shorter than the freedom fighter. His head was tilted to the sky, and there were three sharp wounds in his chest. His eyes were wide open beneath the clear glass of his spectacles, and his curled black hair fell across his face as he tumbled to the ground. Death walked to him and laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Come away with me," he said to the student. "Now is the time." And as quickly as he had fallen, Death took his soul in his embrace and let it go on its way.

He had some time to rest before the next men fell, though it was time enough to ensure that Marius Pontmercy, as had been requested of him, was safe, albeit injured and weak.

Then, as noon passed and the sun began to shine in earnest, Death felt the call of a dying man. He followed its soft voice, soft yet fiercely strong, to a building near to the barricades. He climbed the steps and entered the room on the upper floor. There, beyond the crowd of bruised and broken National Guardsmen, he found an angel.

The young man, no older than Death's physical age, was standing in a corner, a broken bit of a carbine in his left hand. His hair was blond and shining from sweat, but that did little to diminish his ethereal beauty. His eyes, blue as sapphire stones, gleamed as he faced his certain demise. Death smiled at the foolishness, the pure determination, of this young soul.

"Go ahead!" the man said, dropping the piece of his carbine and crossing his arms across his chest. "Shoot me."

Death wondered how anyone would be able to bear to shoot one so beautiful, and the soldiers seemed to feel the same. They deliberated amongst themselves, comparing the man to ideals such as Apollo and spring's gentle flowers. It was then that he realized that the man had not been yet wounded at all, and he supposed it was due to his looks. Looks can kill and save, he thinks. Perhaps it is good, then, that he himself is blond and beautiful, if he does say so himself.

They finished their argument, twelve men blocking off any possible escapes for the revolutionary. Death sighed and readied himself for their meeting.

"Would you like a blindfold for your eyes?" an officer asked.

"No," came the reply.

"Did you kill the sergeant?"

"Yes."

And then, there was a rustling in the corner, and Death tears his eyes away from this angel of the battlefield, of the broken barricades.

Another man, the complete opposite of the angelic revolutionary, stood up. His hair was brown and ragged, and his face is not memorable, if not even ugly. His eyes, though, shined with the same spirit as those of the blond student, and Death recognized that despair of one who knows that he is right, that he has been right all along, and cannot bear to tell anyone the truth.

The brunet stood next to the blond, and then, the sergeant yelled.

"Take aim!" he said, as if he had not even noticed the other man.

"I'm with him," the man said softly. The officers lowered their weapons, watching the newcomer in their midst.

Quietly, he took the blond's lily-white hand in his own, far darker hand. "Will you permit it?" he asked.

The angel shook his opposite's hand with a soft smile, a look of forgiveness. Death watched them say their silent good-byes, and somehow, he knew that there would never be another two men like these two.

Then, the gunshots.

Death took the brunet's head in his hands, tilting it up so that their eyes could meet as the man lay at the blond's feet. "Be at peace," he murmured, and then, he gave the man a kiss. But the man's soul stayed on, waiting for his compatriot. Forever faithful to that embodiment of a noble ideal.

Giving the brunet a smile, Death moved on to the revolutionaries' leader. The man regarded him with strong blue eyes, fierce as ever, even in his demise. Death laid a hand upon his left shoulder, holding him upright against the forces of gravity.

"You are far too brave for your own good," he said with a grin.

"I…I…I had to be brave enough for them," the blond murmured, blood seeping from far too many wounds to count.

"Your fellow revolutionaries?"

"No. For those too weak to stand apart from the laws of weak men," the man said. "For those like these officers."

"Then be strong," Death said. He gave the man a kiss, the first and last kiss that he had ever received.

He watched the two souls walk away, hand in hand and forever strong, together.


End file.
